1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems for identifying word patterns referenced in text, and more specifically, to identifying the word patterns substantially in real time.
2. The Relevant Art
The Internet may be the most significant technological development of recent times. It allows inexpensive and almost instantaneous communication throughout the world. As more and more users begin to take advantage of the Internet, more resources are being directed to enhancing the ability of users to make use of information available on the Internet.
Particularly, various tools that assist in speeding up Internet transmission, searching the Web, and conducting research are continually being developed and distributed for Internet users' benefit. One type of tool that has been developed and which may be used on information downloaded from the Internet is a text parser. Much of the content available on the Internet is in the form of text documents. Volumes and volumes of information are on the Web in text document format. To assist a user in more readily understanding contents of text documents, developers have provided document parser programs.
Such programs typically receive a text document that a user wishes to have parsed and stores that text document persistently in static memory. The parser then makes continual passes over the text, combing it for identified words. Those words can then be identified and presented to the user, generally with some type of enhancement. Such enhancements may include a dictionary reference, a link to an identified web site, or the like.
Such programs suffer from the drawbacks of being somewhat cumbersome and slow. They require significant processing resources, and accordingly are typically used only on powerful computers such as mainframes, work stations, servers, and the like. Additionally, the wait for a user while the text is parsed is generally considerable, because the multiple passes that are necessary for such parsing takes time and generally must be conducted remotely. This generally slows down research being conducted, and in general, lessens the Internet experience somewhat.
Therefore, what is needed is a manner of identifying word patterns in text in a quick and efficient manner in order to improve research efforts and enhance the abilities of users to profitably use the Internet.